Nicholas Soames shows support for the 'boiled rabbits' insurrection

Easily the best quotes provided to any political journalist this weekend were those that Tory MP Nick Boles gave to the Sunday Times.

Having taken to Twitter on Friday night to condemn Theresa May’s “timidity and lack of ambition”, the frustrated former skills minister and paid-up Cameroon followed up by telling political editor Tim Shipman:

“I’ve just had it. Either she has wet ministers who won’t do anything or in the case of Sajid, she has a would-be radical who is desperate to get on and do something major and proper and she just blunts everything.

“There’s a wonderful George Orwell essay about Englishness. He talks about the boiled rabbits of the left. We have a government full of boiled rabbits. She needs to give her ministers their head and she needs to tell them to be brave. She needs to tell them to follow their convictions and ideally she needs to have a few convictions herself.”

The open insurrection by a well-regarded MP has raised a few eyebrows in Downing Street - and attracted fellow Tory MPs to pipe up with similar calls for radicalism from Number 10.

So far they include some of the usual suspects such as failed coup leader Grant Shapps, sacked minister Ed Vaizey and outspoken health select committee chair Sarah Wollaston.

More worryingly for May, Tory grandee Nicholas Soames also posted on Twitter: "It really won't be enough to get people to vote against The Corbini. They must have really sound reasons to vote Conservative. We really need to get on with this."

To hammer home the point, he added the convoluted hashtag: “#wherestheboldandbravesofaritsdulldulldull”.